Strange New Worlds X

by Dean Wesley Smith

  “I’ve read the history, Paulus. I assume your founders were successful and you’re all wired together?”

  “Yes. Our version of the Internet is wired inside our brains.”

  “A hive mind?”

  The next piece in the museum made Riker’s stomach clench. It showed a dozen figures hard-wired to a large computer.

  “No, and yes,” Paulus said with a smile. “Much like that old Internet, static information is stored on a series of servers which can be accessed faster than I can say. Ask me when the street outside was constructed and I can find it without delay.

  “Yet the individuals who make up our society remain separate entities. We do communicate silently, but it’s much like your communications devices. No one can just barge into my mind.”

  Riker scratched his neck, while he digested Paulus’s story.

  “But you’re all connected?”

  “That is simplistic, but accurate,” Paulus said with a shrug. “It is how we live. It is why we exist. Our founders felt unwanted on Earth, maybe even a little persecuted. After the Eugenics War, the kind of manipulation they favored seemed to fall outside the lines of acceptable advances.”

  “Excuse me,” Troi said. She was no longer examining the mosaics. Riker wasn’t sure she ever had been interested in the art. “I’m not sure I understand the intricacies of how your system works, but you’d know if someone had sent the signal we intercepted?

  “You do seem certain no one did.”

  Paulus bowed his head, just a bit, in Troi’s direction.

  “No, I do not know if someone sent the signal,” Paulus conceded. “We’re not mind readers, not even like such touch telepaths as the Vulcans. We have our own kind of internal security devices that maintain our individuality. That is part of our humanity. I’m not eager to lose that.”

  Troi nodded and smiled.

  “I see. You have kept current with the galaxy, haven’t you, even if you’ve been silent.”

  She paused, for just a split second, and then turned back to the display.

  “You know, this really is a remarkable art gallery.”

  Willus was sitting at a conference table, alone, but not without company.

  His mind was racing, sending pulse after pulse into the servers that connected his world. “Find them. Now. Find them. Now.”

  “I didn’t like it,” Riker said.

  Troi nodded. She was seated at Riker’s left in main briefing. The department heads gathered as soon as the entire away team was back on board the Enterprise.

  “He wasn’t lying, exactly,” she said. “What I felt was that Paulus had a secret. Willus was unreadable.”

  Opposite Riker, Captain Picard’s face was also unreadable.

  “I see,” he said.

  “Sir,” Worf said, his deep voice resonating in the small space. “When my team and I explored the city, the inhabitants avoided us. We tried to shop … and no one would serve us. While we were walking, everyone remained at a distance from us.”

  “You sound frustrated, Mister Worf,” Picard said.

  “Yes. I believe the ePlanetians were told to not to speak to us,” Worf said, grinding his teeth.

  Picard leaned back, tracing a thumb against his jaw. The rest of the room was silent.

  “Data,” Picard said, dropping his hand. “You will lead an away team back to the planet surface at 1700 hours. Take two of Worf’s men. Counselor Troi, please join them. Doctor Crusher please see that this team does a better job of blending in with the natives.”

  “I hope no one asks me to use this thing,” Troi whispered to Data, gesturing with her left hand. The metallic casing that matched the ones they’d already seen on the planet was cumbersome, but at least it wasn’t heavy.

  They were already nearing the entertainment complex that Worf had explored with such promise, but no success, earlier that day.

  The security personnel were following the two officers at a discreet distance.

  Data and Troi, now indistinguishable from the ePlanetians and unrecognizable even to Riker, were masquerading as a couple on a date. They hoped to overhear something that could dispel the mystery of the distress call.

  As they entered a boulevard rife with eateries, Data cupped Troi’s elbow and led her to a café and a table near the pedestrian area.

  “Shall we?” he said.

  Troi smiled and leaned toward the android.

  “I wish I could get a better sense of what these people are feeling,” she said. “Something about their technological web seems to be interfering with their emotions or my ability to read them.”

  Data sat down across from Troi and glanced around the plaza.

  “I am sure if we are diligent we can ascertain the truth, Counselor,” he said, turning his head slightly. “Perhaps I shall overhear something useful.”

  “Perhaps. I just feel like there must be a better way.”

  The two spent half an hour at the café and then joined the crowd promenading about the plaza. That included the first children any of the Enterprise crew had seen. The smaller ones were, by all appearances, unaltered humans. The older ones sported the beginnings of the cranial attachments. The teens had just one natural hand. One was striding on a set of four artificial legs that reflected randomly in the nighttime lighting.

  Troi had stopped to admire a fountain when she was bumped from behind.

  “Excuse me, kind lady,” a young voice said loudly. She turned to see a man, clad in red, bowing his apologies.

  “You are being watched,” he said as he straightened. “Please go to the flower shop behind you to find what you seek.”

  By the time he melted into the crowd, Data was at Troi’s side, offering her his arm. She casually slid her hand into the crook of his elbow and briefly rested her head on his shoulder.

  “Contact?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, leaning into his shoulder once again. “We’re supposed to go the flower shop behind the fountain. We’re being watched. I think we should tour the plaza again, and make a few purchases before you declare your undying love with a single, precious flower.”

  “Captain, we have triple-checked our communications grid and the only message that could possibly be your mystery distress call is actually coded as a classroom experiment at one of our secondary schools,” Paulus said.

  Picard leaned back in his chair, glancing at the fish tank in his ready room.

  “Our records are exhaustive, given the linked nature of our culture.”

  “Oh yes, I’m sure they are,” the captain said. “If you’re satisfied that we were mistaken in our interpretation of the message, I see no further reason to continue our investigation.”

  Paulus smiled.

  “I thought that might be your response.”

  “Yes,” Picard said, tapping a finger on his chin. “I see no reason, however, to waste our trip out here. While I understand that you may not be ready for full contact with the Federation, I think this would be a capital opportunity to establish a fledgling relationship. Don’t you?”

  The smile faded as Paulus listened to Picard. He wants us gone, Picard thought. What are they hiding?

  “Indeed, sir,” Paulus said. He wasn’t, quite, clenching his jaw. “Our full Conclave meets in … thirty-one hours. Would you care to address the meeting?”

  “That is just what I was about to suggest,” Picard said. “Please send the coordinates for the meeting. Picard out.”

  He look at Riker, who was sitting on the other side of the desk.

  “Can we find out what they’re hiding by then?” the first officer said.

  “I hope so Number One, I hope so.”

  “That blue one, please.”

  “Excellent selection, kind lady,” the flower vendor said.

  “It smells wonderful,” Troi said, smiling. “These are my favorites.”

  “I doubt that, offworlder,” the vendor said, bending over a computerized cash register. “Your disguises are good,
but your identities are known. When I nod my head, please step past the curtain behind me.”

  He handed Data a receipt for the flower and, as their hands made contact, quickly nodded. The duo stepped behind the curtain. The security guards remained behind, lounging near the fountain, vigilant. But no one followed the officers into the back room of the shop.

  The room was dark, close, like it hadn’t had a fresh breeze blow through in decades. A lone figure emerged from an even darker corner.

  “Welcome to my ePlanet,” she said.

  Troi gasped when she saw the young, unaltered woman standing in front of her. She was taller than Troi, with pale skin and shoulder-length dark blond hair. She had two eyes and two hands. She was about twenty-five years old.

  “Alloyed scrambled the local sensors when he touched your friend’s hand,” the woman said. “You should be safe, for now. I think you were looking for me.”

  “You sent the distress call,” Troi said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes. I request political asylum for myself and my friends,” she shrugged. “If it still works like that. The country our founding parents came from was big on that, according to our history lessons.”

  Troi looked at Data, who was scanning the room.

  “There is an energy reading,” he gestured toward the corner the woman had stepped from.

  “We need to talk to Captain Picard,” Troi said.

  “There isn’t time,” the woman said. “You must come with me, now, or the Conclave will find me. If it finds me, all our hope it lost.”

  Data nodded and tapped his hidden communicator to contact the security guards.

  “Lieutenant Dan.”

  “Yes, Commander” he said into a small communicator set into the collar of his shirt.

  “Have we been observed?”

  “A small military unit just entered the plaza. Orders?”

  “Return to the Enterprise. Tell Captain Picard the Counselor and I have made contact. Data out.”

  The woman stepped back into the corner. Data and Troi followed.

  “You have transporter technology,” Troi exclaimed as the trio materialized in another dark room.

  “Matter-to-energy-to-matter?” the woman said. “Yes. We call it a transfer station. The one we stepped into was temporary and no longer functions. This one is permanent. It’s been invaluable in our struggle.” She shrugged again and turned away from Troi.

  “Wait,” Data said, grabbing her wrist. “We are no longer in the main city, but I am unable to determine our location.”

  The woman glared at Data.

  “That would be our jamming device. Your communications won’t work either. But come. You are in no danger here, unless you reveal our whereabouts to the robots you met earlier.”

  Data released his grip. Troi stepped forward, trying to take advantage of the rapport she felt earlier with the woman.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Dayna. I live among the free, the persecuted, and the human. I sent the distress call. That a Federation vessel, an Earth ship, would be the one to receive it is something I only prayed for, but never really believed would happen. But I was overjoyed when I heard of the meeting with Paulus and Willus in government square.

  “If we leave this room, which you can’t do unless I go first, you’ll meet the rest of us. At least the ones who live here.”

  Troi’s confidence soared as she soaked in the intense emotions rolling off the woman.

  “She’s telling the truth, Data,” she said. “I’m Troi. This is Data. Lead the way.”

  Dayna picked her way through the dim light, keyed a security pad and turned back to the duo as a door rolled open.

  “Welcome to my world,” she said.

  Still at the table, Willus sat in silence. “Find them. We are compromised. Find them.”

  “Captain, I cannot believe that you inserted an undercover team into our city. This is quite distressing,” Paulus said. “We formally protest this action, revoke our invitation to you to attend the full meeting of our Conclave, and ask that you leave our planet.”

  Picard was alone in his ready room.

  “Seems that we have each given the other reason to be distrustful,” Picard said.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Paulus said. “We have been forthcoming to a fault.”

  “Then why are two members of my away team missing without a trace? The message they sent to the ship was that they had ‘made contact.’ My assumption is that they contacted the person or group that sent the distress call we intercepted. You maintain that no one on your planet sent such a message. That leaves us at an impasse.”

  Paulus was quiet. The distance between the ship and the planet seemed to grow ever wider.

  “Your protest is noted,” Picard said. “However, this is an Earth colony and your citizens have rights.”

  He leaned forward.

  “This ship will not leave orbit until my officers are safe and we have unraveled this mystery. Picard out.”

  Troi flexed her hand, pleased Data had been able to remove her false implant.

  “So this is just one outpost of the resistance?” she said to Dayna.

  The village was small, tucked beneath trees and rocky outcroppings of the great, limestone hills that were everywhere. Nearly fifty people called it home, a number that changed almost daily. The power sources were deep inside the hills, where natural mineral veins masked the readings. Rural, but not primitive.

  Dayna led Troi and Data to a small area filled with flowers and benches beneath one of the rocky overhangs.

  “Not even I know how many of us there are,” Dayna said, settling on a bench. “Like this place, most of them are off the main continent, far from City Zero-alpha.

  “But they still pursue us. They still want to force their way on us. We don’t want to be robots.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Troi said. “All citizens of this world are forced to have implants at birth? We saw unaltered children in the entertainment plaza where we met you.”

  Dayna grimaced, nodding to several villagers who drew near, wanting to hear the Starfleet officers talk. “No,” she said slowly, shaking her head. “Those children were wired in at birth. The chip implant is small, behind the ears. They stay like that until their bone structure is more mature. Then the other changes are gradually made.

  “It used to be just the cranial implants, the enhanced eye, the communication devices in the ear canal. But they’re starting to butcher themselves in the name of technology.”

  Troi noticed then that one of the men sitting with them had just one hand. The other arm ended just below the elbow.

  She nudged Data.

  “The implants are growing more extreme?” he said.

  “Yes,” Dayna said, voice low and urgent. “They didn’t use to wire the babies. That was the first step, I guess about twenty-five years ago. Our parents rebelled.

  “For the most part, they were left alone.

  “But as the implants became more bizarre, more people started questioning what was going on. We love technology. Harroldus always liked being wired to the system, didn’t you?” she said to the man with one hand.

  “I did,” he said. “But my employer forced me to get an artificial attachment for my arm. I … I never liked it. My unhappiness tainted my connection to the system. I got fired. I got unhappier and when I picked up the idea that they were coming to reprogram me, well, I tore my implants out. That’s why I’m here.”

  “What do you mean ‘picked up’?” Troi said.

  “I heard it through the Net,” he said.

  “Counselor, if I may” Data said.

  She nodded, growing comprehension on her face.

  “Paulus was emphatic in describing the limitations of your Internet,” Data said. “He told our Captain it was not a hive mind. Yet, it seems like you had less … individuality … than Paulus would have us believe.”

  Dayna nodded.

/>   “Yes,” she said through clenched teeth. “We used to be individuals, and I’m not sure that’s true anymore. Something changed our world. Paulus hasn’t been a representative for very long, but his party has ruled for thirty years. For the last twenty, they have been unopposed.

  “I can remember my parents talking about some controversial elections. But I was still a little girl when people quit talking about things like that for fear of retribution. There was a lot of fear.”

  Her voice had dropped to a whisper. She shuddered, took a deep breath and continued.

  “Some people vanished. Our thoughts were no longer our own. That’s when we knew the Net was changing. That’s when my parents went underground. I have never been wired.”

  She buried her face into her hands, rubbing at tears she couldn’t stop.

  “But before we went, the Conclave stole and wired my older sisters. I haven’t seen them since.”

  Troi was silent. Data cocked his head to one side, opened his mouth then shut it.

  “What do you want?” Troi asked.

  “Asylum. I said that.”

  “Yes, but to what end? To be free to live here without being persecuted, or …”

  “No!” Harroldus said. “I want off this planet, away from these people. I want to be human. I want to be like you.”

  “Sir, I am not …” Data began.

  “Data,” Troi interrupted. “Never mind.”

  Troi quit her seat, moving to sit alongside Dayna.

  “What will happen if they find you, or any of your outposts?” she asked in a gentle voice.

  “They’ll wire us. Take the children. Destroy who we are by invading us with technology we don’t want and have never asked for.”

  “Are you sure?” Troi asked, brushing Dayna’s hair back so she could look into her eyes.

  The resistance leader drew a shuddering breath.

  “Yes, but even if I wasn’t, we need help. We are tired of being afraid. Fear is a powerful weapon.”

  “We have to talk to Captain Picard. We trusted you. Now you trust us.”